Cory Booker to Trenton: We're not helpless'

Over and over again, the Newark mayor touted challenges he has overcome during his tenure and paralleled them to those faced in the state capital in an impromptu campaign stop Friday night in Trenton at Prospect Village’s community center.

The Newark mayor told the packed room that, like Trenton, he was also not given unlimited resources for policing.

Two years ago, 105 police officers were laid off in Trenton.

“We had no money just like Trenton did,” Booker said, adding his police force was reduced by a third from his predecessor. “But we got lower crime rates than they did.”

Booker said violent crime has dropped by 25 percent since he has taken office due to changing policing strategies and investing in technology, such as cameras.

“We’ve got sophisticated gunshot detection,” he said. “If a shot goes off in Newark, we know where it is in a fraction of a second.”

Booker made references several times to Tierra Green, a 19-year-old city resident who died last Saturday after being shot at a party in the 600 block of West State Street.

“When you lose the productivity of large groups of your kids to a game of violence that not only takes their own lives, but often as you see with Tierra’s father, who is here, to cause such emotional costs too often to innocent bystanders as well,” he said.

Booker said the shooting in Newtown, Conn., was a tragedy, but that same moral outrage needs to be felt with urban violence.

“We need to understand that the deaths going on in inner cities is just as critically offensive to our morals as deaths going on into other areas,” said Booker, who is running late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s seat in the special election in October. “We’re all in this together and the urgency has got to be there.”

Interconnectedness is a subject Booker highlighted in his visit to Trenton to bring people together.

“The mistake we make is thinking that there are divisions between our state — that a violent action in Newark doesn’t affect someone living in Summit — that’s just not true,” he said. “A nonfatal gunshot wound costs about $250,000 in medical expenses. Who pays that bill? We do through our tax dollars because most folks who show up with gunshot wounds don’t often have health insurance.”

To tackle the issues of mass incarceration — something Booker said is plaguing the state — the Senate hopeful emphasized several pilot programs he initiated in Newark, such as New Jersey Youth Corps, Youth Education Employment Success Center, re-entry and fatherhood programs.

He said all have reduced recidivism.

“There are solutions to the problem, we’re not helpless,” he said. “Solutions that we found practically stitching together dental floss and chewing gum making pilot programs in Newark.”

Unlike Trenton Mayor Tony F. Mack, Booker said he has no authority over the schools in Newark.

“Your mayor here has appointment power to the school board,” he said. “But, do you I think I let that stop me from getting involved? No, I went out to California and said I want to find (Facebook founder) Mark Zuckerberg and talk with him and get him to donate $100 million to my schools and then work with the school system to use that money in a productive way.”

Booker said everyone needs to be entrepreneurial to turn around a struggling city like Trenton.

In Newark, he started free tax centers, New Jersey’s first financial empowerment center and loan programs to grow new businesses and circulate more cash flow.

Booker said urban areas, such as Trenton, need to expand manufacturing, so more jobs are created to deter youths from joining gangs.

“I’ve proven to myself that there’s nothing we can’t do,” Booker said. “It’s not a matter of can we, it’s a matter of do we have the collective will to do it. We could point fingers all we want, but we’ve got to start accepting responsibility that we have the power to make this change.”

Booker’s campaign stop was attended by council members Phyllis Holly-Ward and Marge Caldwell-Wilson and city mayoral candidate Eric Jackson.

He said he will be back to Trenton once he becomes United States senator “God willing.”

“I’m going to ask more from you than any other politician has ever asked,” he said. “Let me end this with a warning: Don’t vote for me if you don’t want a politician who’s going to be up here in your face asking for more.”